"How you doing, Thean?" Tarrin asked over his shoulder, where Thean and Kimmie floated along with them.
"I'm doing, lad," Thean said in a shaky voice. "Just give me a minute here. This is new for me, you know."
"Don't be afraid, Thean," Tarrin assured him. "The Elemental won't drop you. It's amused that you're afraid, but it would never try to terrorize you."
"I guess it has reason to think it's funny that something is afraid of flying," Thean chuckled ruefully. "After all, it can fly, can't it?"
"Ariana seems to think the same way," Tarrin agreed with a smile. "She can't fathom why anyone would possibly be afraid of heights."
"How fast are we going, Tarrin?" Kimmie asked.
"Hmm, I'm not sure. Let me ask." He communicated his query to the Elemental, but got back a response that was decidedly unquantified. "I don't think the Elemental can understand our concepts of numbers and distances, Kimmie," Tarrin said. "It just told me that it's moving at a cyclone's speed. What that means is anyone's guess."
"They call hurricanes cyclones in Sharadar, and some people call tornados cyclones too," Kimmie told him. "So we're moving pretty damn fast." She looked down. "If I could see the ground, I could measure some landmarks and get a number for us."
"Why is it important?"
"Judging by how fast those clouds are moving, I'd say that we might get to Suld alot earlier than tomorrow," she told him.
"I didn't think of that," he mused, feeling Jesmind's body completely relax. "Alright now, my mate?" he asked gently, squeezing her about the middle.
"I think so," she replied. "It's just new for me, my mate. I'll get over it."
"If it bothers you, you can always hold on to me," he offered.
She looked over her shoulder at him, her eyes a mystery. Then she smiled and patted his paws. "So, it takes me getting scared out of my wits for my mate to show me any affection out of bed," she teased in a playful tone.
"My affection for my mate should have been realized a long time ago," he said, both a quip at her and an admission to himself.
That seemed to confuse her. She looked at him, looked away, then looked at him again, and then she looked away again. She leaned against him, content to let him hold her, snuggling down into his embrace. "Well, at least this is a damn easier way to travel than running," she admitted. "Even if it is weird."
He held her gently, reflective. His affection for his mate did indeed go deep, and it had been there for a very long time. He had to admit, she had had him the moment she had looked up at him with those smoldering eyes back in that cramped den in the wilderness of Sulasia, the first time she had kissed him. She had taken him for mate that morning, and her warmth, her giving of herself, her exquisite tenderness, they had sealed her place in his heart. Jesmind had been his first love, and there was still enough human in him for that to never go away. She would chide him for confusing physical pleasure with affairs of the heart, but she didn't understand the nature of the human about such things. The human could not experience the powerful intimacy they had shared and not been moved by it. Jesmind could have been rough with him, the way Mist had been at first, or been domineering or self-gratifying, but she had not. It had not simply been physical to Tarrin, and he was pretty sure that it hadn't simply been physical for Jesmind either.
She was his first love. And she still was.
He was surprised that it took him so long to understand that. But he'd been angry with her--very angry--and he'd had so much on his mind. She'd simply been there, not being too obtrusive in his life at first, but slowly and methodically worming her way back into his good graces. And when she got there, she showed him everything that had been missing from his life. She made life worth living for him again, gave him something solid to long for when he left her to continue on his quest. She had given him a daughter, given him a home, and had given him a life. She had never given up on him, even after she left him. Even then, she did everything with an eye on the day that he would come back to her, the day he would be hers once again.
She loved him. Kimmie was so right about that. Just hearing Kimmie say it hadn't impacted him as much as realizing it for himself. Jesmind loved him, loved him just like a human woman would love a human man, just like Kimmie said. Jesmind wanted something beyond a simple mating, she wanted something that would last with him. And seeing how her mother and Thean were, she had decided to try that. To create something between them that would draw him back to her again and again after they parted, an endless cycle of parting, reunion, and enjoying it as long as possible before their Were-cat natures drove them apart. He knew that they could never be together all the time like humans, because the nature of the Were-cat would eventually overpower their desire to remain together. And when that happened, they would have to separate for a while, until they spent enough time apart that they were ready to return to one another again.
He closed his eyes and inhaled her scent, felt her in his arms. This was where he wanted to be. This was where he belonged, and it was where he would return when everything was said and done. Jesmind was a part of his life now, a part that could never be replaced. Yes, he had some affection for Mist, and he'd started to feel some interest in Kimmie, but they would never be more than shadows of Jesmind, and would never hold the same place in his heart that she did. And he had the feeling that they both already knew that.
"You're awfully snuggly, my mate," Jesmind told him with an almost childish giggle. "What's gotten into you? And how do I make it happen more often?"
He lifted his head so he could whisper into her cat-ear, which turned towards the sound of his voice. "Have I ever told you, Jesmind, that I love you?" he asked her in a faint whisper.
He could not have produced a more profound reaction in her if he'd have set her hair on fire. He felt her entire body quiver at the sound of those words, and then she seemed to tense, and then to completely relax against him. Then she whirled in his arms so fast he didn't realize it, and kissed him with a ferocity that told him just what she thought about what he said to her.
Strange. It took seeing his mate in a moment of weakness to appreciate exactly what he felt for her, and come to truly understand how she felt about him. He thought about that in the scant moments he was coherent enough to think; Jesmind was the best kisser he'd ever had the pleasure to experience, and trying to form logical thoughts while being branded by her kiss was no mean feat.
Jesmind pulled away and gazed deeply into his eyes, her heart behind hers. "I love you, Tarrin," she told him in a voice charged with emotion. "I have since the day I first saw you." And then she kissed him again with even more fervor, backing up her words in a way that proved beyond any means that she meant every word she said.
Jasana wiped at a little tear in her eyes as she drifted back to Kimmie and Thean, who looked on with glowing smiles. "It's about bloody time," Kimmie chuckled, grabbing Jasana and snuggling her, making her giggle. "It looks like your parents have finally decided to stop dancing around each other and face things, cub," she told her.
"Now we can be the family mama promised we could be," Jasana said with a bright smile. "You think I should go over there and get a hug too?"
"You'd best wait, kitten," Thean told her with a smile, patting her on the shoulder. "Give your parents a few moments to themselves. Then they'll be ready to give you all the hugs you want."
Kimmie looked at Thean. "Alright, that's four days, Thean," she said to him smugly. "I win."
"So you do," he laughed.
"Win what?" Jasana asked.
"The other Were-cats made a bet over how long it would take your parents to admit things," Kimmie winked at her. "I won."
"I should never bet against Kimmie when it comes to things like this," Thean said in a teasing voice at her.
"What did you win?" Jasnana asked curiously.
"Oh, nothing really, cub. Adults like to bet for betting's sake." She looked at Thean. "But I will expect a certain male to pay up when we get to Suld,"
she said in a commanding tone.
"Yes, Kimmie," Thean chuckled ruefully.
There would always be something quite magical about flying to him now.
Tarrin and the others hovered within the Elemental as it continued towards the west, now towards a setting sun, and he could see the ocean on the horizon. True to Kimmie's observation, the Elemental had been moving at such a speed that it got them to the coast in the span of a single day, and the large city of Suld was just barely discernable below. The Elemental had begun to decelerate and descend, but Tarrin had told it to slow even more, so that they would arrive under the safe cover of darkness.
Then again, the idea of returning to the ground seemed like a sad thing. Tarrin had spent the entire time wrapped up with his mate, and they did nothing but talk. Jesmind told him all about the many things she'd seen in her days, and though the presence of Thean and Kimmie kept her from getting too intimate with her recollections, she still managed to say a great deal that helped him fill in the voids of his knowledge about her. He learned that she loved violets, but hated daisies because their scent was repugnant to her. She adored seafood, and lobster in particular was her favorite. She was something of a connoissour of anything sweet, having quite a sweet tooth, willing to travel quite a distance to find someone that made something sweet. She absolutely adored music, and Tarrin was surprised to find out that she had developed a knack for taking the human form because she had been determined to learn how to play the lute when she was younger, and that required her to take the human shape to learn from the man who taught her without sending him into a panic. And also to allow her to play the lute without destroying it. A Were-cat's paws were incapable of playing such a delicate instrument. She didn't play music much anymore, for reasons that even she seemed to not quite understand, almost as if the magic of the music had escaped her over the long years. She liked to read, despite what her mother thought, but preferred stories of fiction and fantasy over what she called "the dusty old ravings of demented lunatics that passes for historical accountings." Jesmind had been alive during much of the time in which those books were written, and she told him that so much of it was so wrong that it made her laugh. Jesmind had an interest in cooking, something he had already realized, but she tended to concentrate on the things she liked rather than being capable of cooking many different kinds of dishes for other people. "Up to now, I only had to cook for myself," she had told him after telling him about that. "Why remember recipes I'll never cook?"
But she did remember those recipes. Talking to her, he realized that Jesmind was alot smarter than anyone, even Triana, seemed to realize. What made her so much different from Thean or Kimmie or Triana was that she didn't have the same burning desire to expand her education. She had a tremendous amount of common sense, and her ability to reason and see to point of the matter was considerable. Jesmind was a much more elemental personality than the intellectual Were-cats, more grounded in her instincts and her senses than the others. That wildness about her was what disguised her mind, made her so deceptively intelligent. She didn't seem so smart because she was still a rather base woman with simple tastes, simple desires, simple motivations, and simple pleasures. She spoke plainly, spoke her mind, and often her mind framed things in elegantly simple terms. She had a wonderfully polarized way of seeing things that boiled everything down to its most simple elements, and it was on that level that she dealt with things. Where others would try to see things in their totality, Jesmind broke them up into little pieces and sought to understand them bit by bit, then expand her mind out and consider the whole as a sum of the parts she had just examined. Jesmind's mind was a delight to him, and he found himself to be totally engaged by it.
It would almost feel like it would be over when they were on the ground again. Reality and its needs would reassert itself into their lives, and their day of revelation, of peace, of conversation, would be over. He could see that she felt the same way, leaning against him in their little bubble of isolation from the air and the world outside, as the ground got closer and closer as the sun seemed to dive behind the western sea, the Sea of Storms.
One thing was for certain. Jesmind had absolutely lost any anxiety or fear over flying.
"Do we have to land, beloved?" she complained, leaning her head against his. He held her from behind as they watched the lights of Suld begin to wink into being as lamps were lit on the streets and torches set on the walls. Tarrin got a little thrill out of her calling him beloved, so much so that he nearly missed her question.
"Unfortunately," he told her with obvious regret. "If anything, we'll have to land soon because the Elemental has used up most of the magic I granted it when I summoned it here. If we don't land soon, it's going to disappear, and we'll be landing the hard way." He could feel the strain it was starting to feel, from both carrying five passengers and moving at its top speed while doing so. Just like any living thing, having to exert itself in such a manner had caused it to expend the energy Tarrin granted it when it was intially summoned very quickly. What would have lasted at least a full day under other circumstances had barely managed to last twelve hours. "Carrying just me would be easy for it, but it's carrying five of us while moving as fast as it can, and it's starting to get tired."
"I didn't realize it got tired," Jesmind said with surprise. "I thought it was just a magical thing."
"It's alive, beloved, just as much as we are. I'm just lending it a body to interact with our world, that's all. Its strength comes from me. And trust me, I gave this Elemental a huge amount of energy when I summoned it. If any lesser Sorcerer had summoned it, it would have dissolved hours ago, considering the demands I've put on it."
"Listen to you," she teased. "Getting arrogant on me, beloved?"
"It's a fact, beloved," he chuckled. "I'm quite proud of it, actually. It's done a tremendous job getting us here so quickly. I'll have to find some way to thank it properly."
"Well then, considering the day it's given us, I'd say giving it anything it wants would be just about right," she purred, turning in his embrace and kissing him on the neck.
"It really likes you now, beloved," Tarrin laughed as the Elementals favor towards his mate became clear through the link he maintained with it.
"Why did it come like this?" Kimmie interrupted insightfully from where she and Thean were having their own little talk, showing Jasana things on the ground and explaining what they were. "I mean, it's not like it just decided to come serve you. It must get something for its trouble, or else it would never have agreed to do it."
"That, is a good question," he admitted, asking the Elemental the very same question. Its reply was eminently simple and practical. "It says that every time it's summoned to this world, it increases its power in the other world, where it comes from. That's what it gains in payment for serving us here, so it's not a one-sided relationship."
"Well then, you need to give it a little extra when it goes back," Jesmind sighed. "It deserves it."
"That it does, beloved," he agreed with a smile. "That it does." He chuckled. "I may have to start summoning my Elementals every day," he announced. "That way they get stronger where they are. I can't have my Elementals going around and getting bullied by the other Elementals, can I?"
"I'm sure they won't mind," Jesmind chuckled. "It's not like you're a bad person to work for, after all."
"Only a few would agree with you, beloved," Tarrin laughed. "Alright, the Elemental says that it'll be just after sunset by the time it puts us on the ground. I'm going to have it come straight down over the Tower and set us on the grounds, so don't anyone have a fit when the Elemental stops, then starts moving straight down."
"Thanks for the warning," Thean said sincerely.
They came to be directly over the city of Suld, and the Elemental stopped when Tarrin pointed out the Tower of Six Spires to it. Then it began to descend quickly, making them all feel a curious lightness in the belly, coming straight down as the city of Suld became more and mor
e detailed to their eyes. Tarrin looked down and couldn't hide his elation. Down there, on those grounds, was almost every single person that Tarrin called family. His parents, his sisters, both blood and bond, his dearest friends, they were all there--except for Sarraya, of course. He had been separated from them for too long, and he almost couldn't stay still as they got closer and closer to the ground. In a very short time, he would see his sisters, his parents, and all his friends once again. Not just see them with spectral eyes, but be able to smell them, touch them, know beyond any doubt that they were with him once again. It had been too long.
Something was...wrong. Tarrin looked down and saw that there were many people milling about the grounds. He looked closer in the gloom of the coming night, as the set sun's last rays of light managed to illuminate the ground, and he realized that there were Knights and Vendari literally covering the entirety of the Tower grounds. There were also figures laying still out on the grass, in the gardens, even on the many bridges that spanned between the main Tower and the smaller towers that surrounded it. Fighting? There had been fighting in the Tower?
What was going on?
He looked more closely. The Knights and the Vendari had everything in hand, he could see that. They had vanquished whoever had managed to actually get onto the grounds, and they even had prisoners. Those prisoners wore no uniforms, only mismatched armor that made them look like mercenaries. How did they get past the fence?
The sense of the Tower brought him back to the present situation, and he realized that the Ward that had once kept him trapped inside was still up. Tarrin had the Elemental pause as Tarrin made contact with the Weave and took care of that little problem. He searched into the Ward's creation, and was impressed that the Ancients had made a Ward of such incredible size. He realized that they'd had to make certain sacrifices concerning its ability in order to have it cover so much area. Instead of making it stop everything, they'd been forced to make it a physical barrier, and that made it vulnerable. That made it capable of being woven so large without tearing it during its creation. He stopped dawdling and searched into the patterns of its weaves, and recognized the weave pattern that could cause it to lower without destroying its integrity. He triggered that programmed response, and caused the Ward to drop. Then he had the Elemental continue.
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